Protected natural areas across Europe are changing. Climate change, with rising temperatures and heavy rainfall, is turbocharging the growth of shrubs and trees, choking the flowers and insects that need the light and heat of open spaces. Traditionally, this scenario prompts nature managers to reach for chainsaws and brush cutters to keep the landscape open. But researchers at Aarhus University and the Natural History Museum, Aarhus, Denmark, can now show that horses and cattle represent a more effective method of nature management given adequate time to do their work.

The method is called “trophic rewilding,” and at the Mols Laboratory field station in Eastern Jutland, researchers followed herds of up to 70 feral horses and cattle from 2017 to 2022. The animals live the autonomous lives of wild animals without supplementary feeding year-round, allowing researchers to gain a deeper understanding of how they use the area.

The five-year study, published in Ecological Applications, shows that the animals use all parts of the landscape, but with a general preference for open grassland areas over closed woodland.